


Welcome Home

by Techpriestess



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: F/M, Flashbacks, Horus Heresy, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-23 01:59:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11979711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Techpriestess/pseuds/Techpriestess
Summary: Kharn the Betrayer has been searching for the Conqueror for Millenia. Finally, he has found her, and the memories of those harrowing days during the Heresy.There’s a brief nod to fuukonomiko‘s drabble “You Look Like an Accident”





	Welcome Home

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [What Happened to Lotara Sarrin? (Art)](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/320565) by Magnifigal. 



He found her. It had been nearly ten thousand years since he had walked her halls, fought in her Pits, and slept in her berths. Losing her had been something that haunted him in his lucid moments. It pulled him to hunt her whenever his dark master did not drill His commands into his skull.

There she was, hanging in the void like the centuries had not passed. She called to him in a way he could not quantify. The pull in his chest burned in a way he had not felt since his fall from grace. Her current master had declined his demands for her. She was the flagship- as if she could be anything less than the pride and joy of a fleet- of this small warband. It pained him to order boarding pods launched into her scarred hull when Kossolax promised his death by the very ship he had come for.

Memories flooded him, challenging the taint in his mind for his attention as he slew the offending crew.

Ten thousand years ago the assault on Terra failed. The Traitors were repelled, their leaders dead or scattered, thousands of brothers dead, and millions of mortals sent screaming into the Sea of Souls. Their ships chased across the universe until they crossed into the Eye of Terror. 

The Blood God did not care from whence the blood flowed, as long as it flowed freely, and so it seemed He did not care for the many shames the Eaters of Worlds had endured during those fateful days.

Even before the Siege of Terra, the Conqueror had been wounded, her crew slaughtered in their attempts to repel the Ultramarine retaliation. The mortals, along with their Astartes companions, were successful, but their recovery was heavily hampered by the Avatar of Khorne brought into their cargo hold. The human crew struggled as best they could despite their water turning to blood, the walls turning to screaming faces and the spreading infection that was the touch of Chaos. Most would not make the journey without their sanity failing.

Lotara Sarrin, her fierce captain and honored of the World Eaters, sustained significant wounds over Nuceria, and spent much time trying to manage the living and the damned as she healed. Even then, she was resplendent in her white uniform. Even then, she invited him back to her room after long hours in the Pits or managing the increasingly more aggressive World Eaters to share a bath and quietly ignore the hell raising around them.

Blood flowed through the grates and down the walls. The rage blinded him from time to time, before coming back to remember another call from her over his VOX or the brush of her hands over his scarred limbs after another grueling battle. The closer he got to the command deck, the more intoxicating his memories became.

He had been glad remembrancers had been removed from the fleet then- he might have been forced to confront the significance of her attention. Eidetic memory made it hard to enough to banish thoughts of her on his weaker nights without picts of the two of them together.

Kossalax the Foresworn had once been a man Kharn had known, though what of the 3rd Company sergeant remained in the beast before him Kharn would never know. There would be no camaraderie here on the floor of the Audaxica. Their axes clashed, but the Avatar of Khorne’s mind was far away.

* * *

Back then, the etchings and carvings in the deep blue ceiling watched in silence as he had run to the command deck. Their flight from Terra had been fraught with combat, the battered fleet getting hammered by the retaliating Loyalists. The latest of their altercations had devastated the already beleaguered command crew and his own words pulsed in his mind.

‘ _There may not be a next time_.’

It was supposed to mean that it was him who would not be coming back. It  wasn’t supposed to be her. Not her. Please, God, not her-

Laughter echoed in his mind as he pulled open the disabled bridge doors. Smoke obscured his vision, forcing his power armor to cycle through other modes in an effort to enable him to perceive the carnage within the room. Too many panels sparked and smoldered. Most of the crew was dead at their displays. Quiet whimpering and wet gasping interspersed the moaning and blubbering cries.

The laughter grew louder as he approached the throne, his blood running cold. He circled it slowly, his eyes trained on where she sat. Blood ran down her face and from both her ears. Raccoon circles darkened her eyes, along with her dark hair plastered to her sweating face. Lotara was slumped in her chair, her white uniform stained with blood and grime. 

Her eyes fluttered as he knelt before her. A trembling smile pulled at the edges of her lips. “Kharn…” She breathed.

“Lotara… Just hold on, the medicae will be here soon-” He whispered, insistent.

“No, Kharn… I…” Her mumbling became unintelligible. A wet cough interrupted her thoughts, sending more blood spattering down her face and uniform. Kharn recognized the fading of a mortal life.

‘ _Don’t go… Not you too…_ ’ He gently brushed her hair from her pallid face.

[ _I can save her, you know_.]

His breath caught in his throat, his eyes wide. ‘ _Khorne…?_ ’

[ _She has served me well. I would have her for eternity._ ]

_‘She would never submit_.’

[ _She gave in to me by loving you_.]

Kharn’s throat tightened. Lotara’s eyes fluttered as she moaned softly.

[ _Collect the skulls of the bridge crew. Build her a throne_.]

Kharn caressed her face and straightened. “… I am sorry.”

* * *

The dream-state faded with the fading away of the daemon before him. He stepped over the body and strode on, letting his Khornite Berserkers finish off the remainder of Kossalax’s force.

The bridge was no different from the rest of the ship- the walls screamed and bled, its crew slaved and embedded in the floors and panels. The throne still bore the skulls of the original crew, skulls he had extracted himself. And nestled in the middle of it all, was her.

Her body was a husk, her uniform long turned to dust from the passing millennia. What remained of her once beautiful hair hung in greasy strands around her skeletal face.

Kharn reached out and caressed her face for the first time in nearly ten thousand years. “Lotara…”

The mummified form shivered as her eyes opened and a smile pulled, disturbing the dust that had collected on her. 

“Kharn… It has been a long time.”


End file.
